


tumblr drabbles 2017

by ferryboatpeak



Category: Harry Styles (Musician), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Crack, Kidfic, Late Late Show, M/M, Pining, Red Pants, Sex Tape, Threesome - M/M/M, cocosan, dunkirk cast, jamaican idyll, kiwi, liam chain, lilo brits verse, lilo chain, mermaid, more slothry, romper, sheffield - Freeform, slothry, slow hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-10-11 17:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10470456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferryboatpeak/pseuds/ferryboatpeak
Summary: uploading tumblr drabbles throughout the year. includes party slothry (x2), lilo and the golden chain, 1/2 of the sheffield hug, sea punk zayn + mermaid harry, slow hands sex tape, hitch ft. romper, hitch ft. cardigan, lilo/tomlinshaw kidfic. pairing ID'd in each chapter title.





	1. party slothry (kinda haylor, kinda lourry)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> credit to [butternutstyles](http://butternutstyles.tumblr.com/) for slothry inspiration.

Taylor plucks a sharpened pencil from the mason jar on her desk and starts a numbered list on a monogrammed notepad. “Small Talk Topics,” she heads it, and underlines the title precisely.

1\. Just Hold On  
2\. Freddie – birthday  
3\. Condolences (sincere)  
4\. Zayn

She taps the pencil eraser twice against her lower lip, considering. It would be so satisfying to tell Louis that it’s been a pleasure to work with Zayn. (Whether that’s true is beside the point.) “He seems really happy these days,” she might add, sweetly.

No. She scratches a neat line through item 4. That’s the kind of pettiness Louis was probably hoping for when he hung up on her assistant and demanded that Taylor call him herself. Taylor reminds herself, from long experience, that conversations with Louis are not a question of winning or losing. They’re a question of whether she wants to walk away with or without her dignity intact.

She’s put the call off for a couple of days, considered not calling at all. But next Saturday is coming up, and people have certain expectations about parties these days. Taylor hates failing to live up to expectations. She hates it even more than she hates talking to Louis Tomlinson. Taylor takes two centering breaths and dials the number.

“Taylor! Lovely to hear from you!” Of course he’s milking this for all it’s worth. “I thought for sure you’d be going with our competition.”

Taylor grits her teeth, hoping Louis can’t hear it over the phone. At least she won’t need the small talk list. She keeps her voice light. “I think you’ve got the monopoly for now.”

“Isn’t that handy? Such a market niche.”

To be fair, Louis had pretty much created the market. When Harry turned into a sloth, Louis saw a business opportunity. He booked Harry on job after job, and soon no party in L.A. was complete without a sloth. Taylor thought her event was all sorted when her assistant managed to find a different sloth to rent, but the other agency canceled when its sloth came down with a viral infection. Honestly, Taylor wouldn’t put germ warfare past Louis.

Still, it’s hard for her to resent Louis for ruthless business acumen, when it’s the one trait they have in common. Well, two traits, if the unfortunate inability to completely detangle oneself from Harry Styles counts a trait. “Is Harry available for an engagement next Saturday?”

“Well, well, well.” It’s obvious that he’s smirking. “Let me just take a look at his calendar.” As if Louis hadn’t know this was coming.

There’s a shuffling and a clunk on the other end of the line as he puts the phone down. “Harry, it’s your old friend Taylor on the phone,” Louis calls out cheerfully. “Come and say hello!”

Taylor hears snuffling noises. “Hi, Harry,” she says cautiously. Harry squeaks in response. Taylor doesn’t say anything else.

She’s run into Harry a few times on the party circuit since he became a sloth. Sloth Harry isn’t that much different from when Harry was a person: unsettling gazes and awkward silence and disproportionate limbs all over the place. Taylor might actually like him better as a sloth, now that she doesn’t have to pretend to understand.

Louis is back on the line. “You’re in luck,” he proclaims, with exaggerated glee. “Saturday is available. Shall we see you around seven o’clock? I think Harry still knows the way to your place.”

It’s not that Taylor minds Harry being at the party. But… Louis. “Harry seems to be great at parties,” she suggests. “I’m sure he’ll be fine if you just drop him off.”

“Oh no, it wouldn’t do to leave Harry unsupervised. You know how he gets.” (True, Taylor does.) “I take my responsibilities as sloth handler very seriously. _Very_ seriously.”

Taylor blows out a breath, puffing her bangs up in frustration. Louis can probably hear it, but she doesn’t care anymore. “Fine, I’ll see you two at seven. Please try to look presentable.”

“Taylor, what a cruel thing to say.” She’s not sure how sincere Louis’s indignation is. “You should know it’s killing Harry not to be able to dress up.”

Taylor doubts this. In her experience, Harry is happiest without any clothes on.

Louis is still talking. Taylor remembers how hard it is to get him to shut up. “I tried letting him have his rings last week, but they kept falling off his claws. He was so unhappy. You know, his pouting sloth face is rather uncanny. Looks just like the old Harry.”

“Too bad Harry was over the hat phase,” Taylor observes. “That might have worked for a sloth.”

“Well, it’s a bit hard to keep on a hat when you spend most of your time hanging upside down in a tree.” Louis perks up with a new idea. “Perhaps we could try a headscarf. Harry, Harry, would you like a headscarf?”

That seems to meet with Harry’s approval, if the squeaks Taylor hears in the background are any indication. She is so done with this conversation. “All right, what do I owe you?”

Taylor hears a thud, as if a pair of feet are being propped on a desk. She can picture it, Louis reclining back, grubby feet up, Harry draped over the back of his chair, placidly nibbling on a leafy branch.

“I’ll tell you what,” Louis announces magnanimously. “I think we can give you the friends and family rate.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Taylor pinches the bridge of her nose and wills pleasantness into her voice. “You really, really don’t.”


	2. lilo and the golden chain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter combines three drabbles. between the second and the third, [Mildly_Maddy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mildly_Maddy/pseuds/Mildly_Maddy) joined me in this verse and gorgeously fleshed out the [2016 brits](http://mildlymaddy.tumblr.com/post/157456754061/because-moondoggiestyle-posted-this-and-because) incident referenced, so you should read that too.  
> photos of the chain are [here](http://ferryboatpeak.tumblr.com/post/157347555563/queerlyalex-littlemissmeggie).  
> photos of the hoodie are [here](http://lpfashionarchive.tumblr.com/post/156079248717/liam-on-facebook-live-january-19-2017-maison) and [here](http://ltfashionarchive.tumblr.com/post/145712008699/louis-in-la-june-9-2016-maison-margiela-band).  
> brits promo featuring louis talking about zayn [here](http://thetomlinsondaily.com/post/155867718132/louis-in-the-brits-are-coming).

“New look Payno,” says the packing slip, and Liam’s eyes are crinkling with a smile before he even opens the black velvet box. He still never knows what to expect from Louis, but he’ll take whatever he can get.

The box is heavier than he expects. It opens with a smug snap. Liam’s not sure what to make of the very large, very heavy, very gold chain inside.

Last week Louis was giving him a hard time about his solo look, which his team keeps calling “urban.” So this is… an apology, maybe? Something.

Liam drapes the chain around his neck and checks the mirror. It doesn’t look as large now. It still surprises him sometimes, seeing his body with something that scales it, the dissonance between his size and how much smaller he remembers himself to be.

It’s not the worst look. Actually, he likes it. Urban, right?

Over the next few weeks, Liam gets kind of attached to the chain. He wears it to the studio, even. And it seems natural to wear it to the X Factor finale, the first time he’ll have seen Louis in so long.

He’s expecting to find Louis fragile, emotions close to the surface in a way they rarely are, ready for Liam to wrap him up in an all-encompassing hug. Instead, Louis practically chokes as soon as Liam walks into the dressing room.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re wearing it.” Louis straightens up to pound Liam on the back and goes right back to doubling over with laughter. “Please tell me you didn’t get papped on the way in.”

Liam’s stomach twists. There’s nothing to do but play along. “Figured it’d get a laugh out of you, Tommo.”

And of course it’s good to see Louis laughing, to be able to do that for him. Louis doesn’t let the joke go, keeps coming back to the chain as he careens around backstage, maniacal with some combination of grief and sleeplessness and anticipation.

Liam laughs right along with everyone else, and ducks his head cooperatively when Louis grabs to appropriate the chain. Louis drapes himself across the dressing room couch like a prince, the center of everyone’s attention, hooking his thumb into the chain and demanding that Lou Teasdale take a picture.

The whole thing makes Louis so happy that Liam forgets it ever wasn’t a joke to him. But then he remembers the photographer outside the studio and his stomach knots up all over again.

A week later, Louis sees the photos of Liam, looking happy and at ease with that giant hideous chain on his broad chest. This should be funny. Louis should laugh, right? He isn’t sure why he doesn’t feel like laughing. This must be the kind of thing his grief counselor told him about, where none of his emotions are going to work right for a little while.

***

Louis has an emperor’s uncompromising definition of loyalty, and Zayn didn’t know how to leave without torching the palace drawbridge behind him. Liam had resigned himself to years of blowing on the smouldering ashes of their friendship, trying to coax any ember back to life. So he ought to be happy, excited even, that they’re being civil to each other.

But when Louis casually compliments Zayn in the Brits promo, it lands like every ice cube Louis has ever dropped down Liam’s shirt. He’d thought the Brits were their thing, after last year. After it was just the two of them, for once, more drunk and euphoric than an unsurprising victory warranted. After the escalating game of chicken they’d started on the red carpet escalated beyond what Liam had been brave enough to hope for.

It’s irrational to feel like he and Louis have laid claim to an entire national event. But he feels it just the same. The feeling gets worse when he hear that Louis has spoken to Zayn, because when’s the last time Louis called Liam?

Not since Louis left his hoodie at Liam’s house, anyway. It’s hanging on the hook on the back of the closet door. Liam put it there, someplace temporary, when he thought Louis left it because he’d be coming back. Months later, it looks more like Louis just abandoned it. Abandoned Liam.

Liam knows it’ll fit before he tries it on. Louis always wears clothes too big, the sleeves of his thousand-dollar jumpers stained and ragged from straying down past his knuckles, thumbs tucked inside. As Liam tugs the hoodie over his head, he can’t tell whether it smells like Louis or whether he’s just imagining the impression of smoke and coffee and unwashed hair.

The chain’s hanging on the same hook as the hoodie. Liam wears it in public every now and again. He’ll still do anything to make Louis laugh, even if it’s at Liam’s expense, even if the chain feels like it’s rubbing Liam’s skin the wrong way. It may be a joke to Louis, but at least it’s a joke between the two of them.

Liam tucks the chain inside the collar of the hoodie like a secret. He catches a glimpse of himself in the hallway mirror on his way out the door to the studio, recognizing his transparent bid for Louis’s attention. He doesn’t care. Look at me, Liam thinks, I’m the one who didn’t leave you. I’m the one who never will.

***

“Absolutely not,” Louis had said as soon as his publicist mentioned the Brits. He could be nominated for everything on the ballot and he’ll still never go anywhere near the Brits again.

She’d tried to convince him, talked about the bad optics of Liam up there alone while “we could be the greatest team the world has ever seen” echoed in the background. Louis wasn’t convinced. Louis is pretty confident that the last place Liam wants to see him is the Brits.

So he’s here, on the couch, with Doris and Ernest. He’s let them stay up late not for their own sake but for his, something for him to turn to if he needs to look away from the screen. They’d spent the whole show rearranging the cushions, jumping back and forth between the couch and the ottoman, and dragging their favorite blankets around on the floor.

When it happens, Louis isn’t quite prepared for the way his stomach clenches. “That’s your Uncle Liam,” he tells the twins, realizing that he’s leaning closer to the television.

Doris stands on the end of the couch and face-plants into the seat cushion. “Who’s Uncle Liam?”

“Well, you haven’t seen him since you were younger.” Louis doesn’t know how he should answer the question. He doesn’t know how he let it become a question that had to be asked.

Ernest drapes himself across Louis’s back. It helps.

Liam has curls like Louis hasn’t seen since 2011. He’s all bundled up in a pullover and a leather jacket, with studded details that make him look armored. Nothing as easy to grab as the lapel of a suit. Nothing as fragile as a row of buttons down the front of an expensive shirt.

The buttons had come off easier than Louis had expected, after the Brits last year. He could have undone them properly, but it felt better to fight something, to cause all the chaos he could with his mouth violently pressed to Liam’s. He could hear the pop of the threads and the click of each button on the hardwood floor of the front hall. Liam just tightened his grip on Louis’s hips and pulled him closer.

He’d spent close on six years trying to push Liam out of his comfort zone, prodding and demanding and pushing into his space. But it turned out there’s no such thing as outside Liam’s comfort zone, not when it comes to Louis. That night, the discovery felt like an unexpected drop, like misjudging the number of steps in a staircase.

Louis doesn’t know what to do without a boundary to push. Doesn’t know how to be around Liam now that he’s not something to crash into or climb or subvert.

When Liam’s done speaking, Louis tosses Doris over his shoulder and scoops Ernest up by the waist. He waves off Fizzy’s offer to help and hauls them to their bedroom, singing “Bedtime for you, bedtime for you.” A couple of books read, a couple of songs sung, two pairs of spindly arms in striped pajamas wrapped tight around his neck as he says goodnight. It’s a better choice than he made last year, he hopes.

Louis closes the bedroom door behind him and pauses halfway down the hall to tweet something, the ingrained habit of gratitude demanding attention now that the twins are settled. Once he starts the recording on his phone, the thanks come out of his mouth soft and automatic. So does the apology. Sorry again, although he’s only said it once. Sorry I can’t be there.

He’s not sure who he’s apologizing to.


	3. sheffield hug (lourry)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written as a counterpoint to [ Mildly_Maddy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mildly_Maddy/pseuds/Mildly_Maddy)'s [louis pov](http://mildlymaddy.tumblr.com/post/158407908471/the-crowd-goes-wild-wilder-than-louis-has-ever); credit to her for a good edit as well.

At the end, he sticks himself to Liam as long as he can. When Liam starts to back away from their hug, Harry even follows him for a couple of paces, hoping it looks more clownish than desperate. Liam finally takes him by the shoulders and pushes him off toward Louis.

Liam knew this was coming, they all did. Niall had sat them down to talk about it. It was tiresome and embarrassing, to have a meeting about a hug. To sit there trying not to look at Louis, trying not to think about how they used to be all hugs and interlocked arms and shared spaces.

Louis’s arm around him during interviews, Louis sprawled across his lap in the back of cars, Louis climbing into his bed with a cup of tea. Louis’s touch grounding him in the midst of the hectic and all-consuming experience that started with X Factor and never let up.

Harry loved all of it, loved it extravagantly, loved the shows and the fans and the tours and the constant adrenaline. Loved the people he got to share that experience with.

But eventually it wasn’t a marvelous, surreal experience any more, it was just… normal. It was just his life, documented on a too-full calendar and constrained by walls of flashbulbs and screams. Somewhere along the way his crush on the experience ended, and only then did he realize he’d mistaken it for a crush on Louis.

He pulled back, too far back, probably. So far that he can barely bring himself to amble into this hug. But Louis is beckoning him, perfectly casual about it, and it’s not like he can say no. He’s never told Louis no. He just withdrew enough to avoid questions at all.

He assumes Louis never felt the way he did, assumes he saw Harry as one more hero-worshipping little brother in an entire band full of them. Just like Niall and Liam, except more embarrassingly ready to match Louis touch for touch, to lean into his side and twine their ankles together.

Assuming’s easier than talking about it. There’s no good way to say, “I thought I was in love with you for two years, but I wasn’t, I was in love with everything, and you were the only part of it I could get my arms around.”

He can still do that, at least, one sweaty cheek pressed to Louis’s and the other against Louis’s shoulder for a brief moment, his arm tight against Harry’s neck. Harry has to slouch a little to accommodate. They were closer to the same height last time they did this.

He’s the taller one now, big enough to fit into this life on his own. He doesn’t look back. Not after the hug. Not at all.


	4. sea punk zayn (zarry)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> harry's [all wet](https://midsummervixen.tumblr.com/post/158830632527/dunkirks-harry-styles-solo-debut-promo-video) and zayn got [green tips](http://queerlyalex.tumblr.com/post/158933248367/keepingupwithzayn-zayn-via-twitter). it had to be sea punk zayn + mermaid harry.

it’s a cold gray morning. a sunrise without a sunrise. the waves recede through smooth rocks like breath sucked through teeth, muffling the hollow sound of zayn’s boots above them. when he reaches the end of the pier, he wraps his arms around his knees and sinks his chin down into the leather of his sleeves until all he can see is the sea and the sky.

the sea, and the sky, and a sleek dark head emerging from the swell of a wave.

zayn’s shed his jacket and boots before he’s even stood up. he catches a toe on a rip in his jeans as he shucks them off, leaves a trail of socks and pants and studded belt on his way to the ladder at the side of the pier. he’s already two rungs down when he tosses his t-shirt back toward the rest.

the water’s as cold as ever. its indifference feels meaner than hate, but zayn refuses to pity himself. he made his choice.

the ladder’s corroded below the tide line, rough against his bare feet until he hooks an arm through the bars and floats. barnacles scrape the soft skin inside his elbow. zayn feels the slide of a scaled body, firm and smooth against his thigh, a split second before harry surfaces.

salt water’s still sluicing down harry’s face when he kisses zayn, his mouth cool like an oyster. it runs through the crevices of their lips and everything tastes of tears. zayn wonders if the brine is enough to overpower the whiskey that’s still on his tongue, or if harry can taste that too.

harry wraps an arm around zayn’s waist, an arm around his shoulders. droplets fall from the ends of his hair onto zayn’s collarbones. zayn rakes the hair back from harry’s face, tangles his fingers to wring it out. harry makes a noise that’s half whistle, half squeak when zayn traces his fingertips along his back and splays out his palm over harry’s spine.

zayn presses down, trying to get harry closer, never close enough. he unwinds his arm from the ladder when a wave approaches, letting it float him upwards with harry. his narrow feet feel clumsy and useless brushing against the strong plane of harry’s fin.

harry breaks the kiss and zayn shivers. he reaches up to tug at a lock of zayn’s hair, raising his eyebrows at the new sea green tips. it’s the color of harry’s eyes as zayn remembers them, which is somehow never the color they actually are.


	5. fingertips putting on a show (zarriall/zarry)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> slow hands sex tape. for zarriall week spring exchange 2017.

The band is filtering back into the studio after a break when a message from Harry skims across Niall’s phone. He should ignore it until the end of the day, but it’s a video. Part of him knows it’s probably just a slow pan over a bunch of vegetables artfully arranged to look like a dick, but still, he’s never going to ignore a video from Harry.

“One minute,” he tells everyone, because he gets to do that now. He taps the volume all the way down and presses a thumb over the speaker on bottom edge of his phone, just in case, before hitting play.

And there’s Harry, grinning his fool face off, arms stretched out into the camera as he tries to prop his phone against some surface that keeps letting it slide down. His face slips off the bottom of the screen three times before he finds some trick to keep the phone upright. Each time Harry rescues the phone and pops into view again, Niall’s reminded with increasing vehemence that he’s shirtless. His hair’s sticking out every which way.

Niall pauses the video and waves his phone in the general direction of everyone. “Gotta take care of this,” he tells them, hoping it sounds appropriately business-y. He digs his earbuds out of his bag and slides the connector into his phone. Closing the door behind him as he steps into the next room, he restarts the video from the beginning.

He’s surprised to hear the triple drumbeat at the start of Slow Hands in the background, tinny and distorted. Harry gets the phone secured as the vocals start, and then turns and moves a couple of paces away from the camera. He’s wearing nothing but pants, red ones, and dancing in a way that would look ridiculous on anyone else. But Harry manages to make it look like sex, just like everything else he does. Or maybe that’s just the way it looks to Niall.

Anyway, if Niall accomplishes nothing else as a solo artist, seeing Harry wiggle his nonexistent arse to Slow Hands would be enough.

Niall’s not expecting Harry to reach out and pull someone else into the frame. But as soon as he sees Harry’s hand wrapped around a forearm with a checkered flag, the video makes a lot more sense. Harry and Zayn have always liked an audience. And Niall’s always been happy to oblige. He’s always assumed that’s the whole reason they want him there. Harry and Zayn think that sex together only counts if someone else appreciates how good they look doing it. They’re the erotic equivalent of a tree falling in the woods: if no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?

The first time, Niall hadn’t immediately realized his role. He’d only been surprised and nervous and a little bit awed to be allowed this piece of Harry and Zayn, both of them untouchable in their different ways no matter how much time all of them spent touching.

As the credits rolled on the movie they were watching and Niall slid off the hotel bed to go back to his own room, Harry was the one to wrap his fingers around Niall’s wrist and murmur, “Stay.” When Niall sank back down on the duvet, knees a little shaky, Zayn was the one to slide his hand behind Niall’s neck and pull him into a gentle kiss.

That teamwork was the biggest surprise. It wasn’t surprising, exactly, to realize Harry and Zayn had slept together before; Niall had always suspected that was just a few drinks away from happening. But the way they worked together, their easy, established rhythm, that was unexpected. It felt like discovering a current under the surface of the band, a hidden stream that had been flowing long enough to carve its own path through the bedrock.

After a little while, Zayn tangled his fingers in Harry’s hair, pulled him back from Niall’s cock, and announced, “Niall’s going to watch while you ride me.” Terrible timing, thought Niall, but it did leave Harry’s mouth free to make a devastating kind of noise that indicated full support for Zayn’s proposal.

“All right, Niall?” Zayn asked. Sweaty, flushed, with all eyes on him, Niall managed to exhale his concurrence. He should have known this was coming, with what Zayn’s fingers had been up to at the other end of the bed while Niall was backed against the headboard preoccupied with the world-changing experience of Harry’s mouth.

And anyway, Harry and Zayn kissing had been about the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. Niall wasn’t going to say no to whatever else there was to watch.

Zayn crawled up the bed and settled on his back next to where Niall was leaning against the headboard, his shoulder pressed against Niall’s hip. Harry slung a leg over Zayn and planted his other knee on top of Niall’s foot, smirking.

“Wanker.” Niall worked his foot free and kicked at Harry with his heel.

“You love it.” Harry grabbed his ankle and Niall went in with his other foot and both hands, trying to topple Harry over while Harry slapped his flailing limbs away.

Zayn, in his most long-suffering tone, demanded that they hold still long enough for him to roll on a condom. Just like that, Harry pivoted right back from total dork to human embodiment of sex, raking his hair back from his face and biting his lip and holding Niall’s stare as he worked himself slowly downward.

“Jesus, that’s hot,” Niall choked out after Harry and Zayn hit their stride, and that’s when the essential nature of his role as the audience became clear. Harry tipped his head back and moaned, and Zayn thrust up hard and dug his thumbs into Harry’s hipbones, and Niall decided he’d better keep talking if that was the reaction he was going to get.

So he managed to gasp out narration, describing them to themselves, stretching to come up with a series of variegated ways to tell them how gorgeously they were fucking. Zayn and Harry got louder, harder, faster as Niall ramped it up. When he ran out of words, he finished himself off, and that seemed to have the same effect on them. He didn’t exactly mean to get anything on Zayn, but he did, and so did Harry, and they liked that too, all three of them liked it, and Niall felt like he’d unexpectedly passed a test in a class he didn’t even realize he was registered for.

On the video, Harry bites his lip and pulls Zayn closer until their hips collide. Harry’s trying to get him to dance, and Zayn’s not having it, of course. Niall tries to figure out if they slot together as easily as they used to. It’s been a long time, or at least a long time since Niall was involved, which may not be the same thing.

Anyway, Harry and Zayn kissing is as pretty as ever. Different, sure, but still pretty. With no curls to creep forward and obscure it, Harry’s jawline is unfairly prominent. Zayn’s hand cups Harry’s face, thumb touching his cheekbone and index finger delicate along the line of his ear, without disappearing into a mane of hair. Niall starts to puzzle out new constellations of ink on their arms and torsos as they move against each other, like he’s a mariner relearning how to navigate after a shift in the stars.

Zayn’s fingertips walk down Harry’s side and tuck under the waistband of his red pants, well-timed as the song arrives at “fingertips putting on a show.” Zayn cuts a glance toward the camera immediately afterwards. Niall realizes that Zayn’s familiar with it, and gets a warm, tight feeling in his chest at the thought of Zayn listening to Slow Hands more than once, remembering it.

As Harry’s pants hit the floor, Niall inhales jaggedly and realizes that there’s less than a minute of the song left. He wasn’t expecting any of this, and yet it’s still not going to be nearly enough.

Harry crowds Zayn out of the frame and reaches back to grab the phone. He turns it away from his face and Niall catches a jittery glimpse of Zayn sat on the edge of a hotel bed as Harry moves closer, joining him. Niall remembers they must be in New York, and feels every mile of the continent he’s on the other side of.

The duvet rushes into view, closer and closer before the phone lands face down on it. A second later, it’s picked back up and the shot stabilizes on Harry’s face, eyes dark and hair spread out messily against a white pillow.

“Lovely tune, Niall,” Harry says, fondly, and dry as ever, right as the track ends with the last repeat of “slow hands.”

Then Harry turns the phone away from him. Niall can’t tell if the angle’s intentional, but it’s a perfect tease, only showing the inside of Harry’s thigh tapering to his bent knee and a sweep of sea green hair against it.

“Yeah, sick,” says Zayn, although Niall can only see him from from his eyebrows up.

Niall’s treated to one last swooping view over Harry’s body as he turns the screen back toward him. Harry’s hand comes into the frame, and then the video ends, leaving Harry and Zayn alone for whatever the Slow Hands foreplay was leading up to. It’s more than Niall expected and still not enough, which feels like the same amount they’ve always allowed him to have.

Niall hovers a thumb over the screen, waiting for the tide of adrenaline and arousal to recede and trying to decide what to type. He’s spared the indecision, if not the physical reaction, when another message from Harry pops up.

_In LA next week?_

That’s easy enough to respond to. _Yeah. Thx for the video. Like old times._

_New times. Z in town also._

Someone knocks on the door, and Niall realizes he’s still leaning against it. “Ready to go?”

Niall saves the video to his phone, locks it, and wraps his earbuds up. He adjusts himself in his shorts and opens the door. “Sure, let’s do it.”

“Everything all right?”

“Yeah,” Niall says, gesturing with his phone. “Single’s doing great things.”


	6. kinda into it (hitch)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hitch ft. romper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a little shorter than what i'd usually upload here, but for the sake of the historical record my first foray into hitch needs to be preserved.

As soon as filming’s well and truly over, Harry shrugs his arms out of his… coveralls? onesie? jumpsuit? Mitch isn’t quite sure what you’d call the pinstriped thing that Harry’s wearing. He hasn’t asked; seems like it would be a stupid question.

The top half of it hangs from Harry’s waist as he makes his way through the crew with James, extending hugs and fist bumps. He’s got one last button still done up to keep the thing from falling down entirely. It stretches in its buttonhole above Harry’s hipbone, weighed down by the the sleeves dangling past his thighs. He looks like a dragon halfway through shedding its skin.

Mitch can’t look at him, and at the same time he can’t look away.

He heads backstage as quickly as he can. He needs a smoke, he needs some air. He needs to breathe something that’s not the scorch of pyrotechnics and Harry going supernova.

Kiwi was a lot, is all, and Harry half-naked isn’t helping anything. It reminds Mitch of Jamaica, of Harry at the breakfast table in a white towel wrapped around his hips, of morning sun starting to warm the porch. Plates of primary-colored fruit Harry insisted on eating with his fingers. Bare shoulders that tasted faintly like the ocean.

This isn’t Jamaica, though, and Mitch still hasn’t figured out what he’s allowed to have here. What he’s allowed to want.

He gets his gear in order and goes back to the dressing room to hang up his jacket and find his cigarettes. While he’s extracting a hanger from the overcrowded rack, he hears someone come in behind him. Mitch doesn’t turn around, tells himself he’s not anticipating anything and doesn’t want to look like he is.

So he’s still wrestling with the hanger when he feels fingertips on the back of his sweat-damp neck, and then cool air as his hair’s gathered, twisted, lifted.

“D’you ever wear it up, on stage?” Harry asks, low and slow, as Mitch turns toward him. It puts him close in Harry’s space when Harry doesn’t untangle Mitch’s hair from his hand. Harry tips his head to the side, inspecting, holding the eye contact that never fails to make Mitch squirm. He feels unfairly exposed.

At my last job, Mitch thinks, I wore my hair up at my last job because an 800-degree wood-fired pizza oven generates even more heat than you do, although tonight it was a close thing.

Or, he thinks, I’d hide entirely behind my hair if I could because there’s always a camera and I’m already sick of seeing the expression on my face when I look at you.

“Maybe,” Mitch says, nonsensically, but Harry probably didn’t care about the answer anyway. “Do you ever miss yours?”

He’d wondered that for the first time tonight, seeing Harry fling himself around the tiny plot of stage available to him, realizing what it must have looked like when Harry had a mane of hair at his disposal. Mitch had barely known Harry with long hair; thinking about it now is like thinking about a different person, the new boss Mitch only knew for a few studio sessions before Harry went off to be an actor.

Another Harry showed up in Jamaica, with short hair and a broader back, dragging Mitch out for morning walks on the beach and tucking his sand-scuffed feet against Mitch’s calves at night. Just when Mitch started to get comfortable with that version, it got swapped for this one, the Harry with tens of thousands of dollars of dragon-bedecked suits, afloat on a sea of screams wherever they go.

“Maybe,” Harry echoes, half-laughing. So he was listening.

Harry tugs on Mitch’s hair a little until his chin tips up, and then kisses him like he owns the entire world and Mitch along with it. Which isn’t far from the truth, Mitch reflects. He slides his hands down Harry’s sides to the gold-traced lining of his half-shed suit and reminds himself not to ruin this by wanting more than what Harry’s willing to give.


	7. i'm gonna pay for this (hitch)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hitch ft. cardigan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at least one detail in here owes credit to [countthestars](http://archiveofourown.org/users/countthestars).

It’s comforting, almost, the first day it’s overcast in Jamaica. It’s the only thing in weeks that hasn’t been perfect. It makes Mitch think that maybe, just maybe, this is reality.

He’s on the terrace watching the clouds move over the flat blue-grey water, a faint smudged line of orange sunset visible beneath them, when Harry joins him. He’s wearing Mitch’s tan cardigan. Again.

The fabric stretches over Harry’s shoulders and biceps in a way it never does on Mitch. Mitch is pretty sure that’s not how this is supposed to work. Pretty sure that when you’re trying to be cute by stealing someone’s clothes, you’re supposed to pick something that’s too big, not too small. Harry’s weird about clothes, though. He’s either wearing three layers or next to nothing at all. Mitch hasn’t figured out what that’s about yet.

(There are a lot of things Mitch hasn’t figured out yet.)

The first time Harry slunk into the studio in Mitch’s appropriated sweater, Mitch’s fingers twitched and dropped a chord. He’s used to the sight of it by now, though. Calm enough to keep playing while giving Harry the smallest of smiles, just enough reassurance that it’s okay for Harry to keep doing exactly what he wants to do. As if anyone on this Jamaican idyll would tell Harry any different.

Getting used to Harry in his sweater feels like a small bit of progress. Every time Mitch thinks he’s starting to get acclimated to Harry in general, there’s something else to make his breath catch and static fuzz over his skin.

Harry bent down at the piano transcribing whatever unearthly thing he’s hearing in his head. Harry raising a mint-flecked glass for a late-night toast, eyes bright and voice shaky with laughter. Harry sleeping on his stomach in Mitch’s bed, arm wrapped around a pillow. Mitch is probably never going to get used to the sight of him, even if he gets the chance to, which he’s not quite ready to believe he will.

Harry joins Mitch at the railing and leans a shoulder into him. Mitch knows what he’s expecting. He wraps an arm low around Harry’s waist, fingertips on the hem of the sweater. My sweater, he thinks.

“It’s cold,” Harry says. “You should take my hoodie.” He waves his hand over at the sliding door to the house, where Mitch can see an abandoned hoodie draped over the back of a couch.

It’s not that cold. But it’s obvious Harry wants him to, so Mitch retrieves the hoodie and puts it on. It smells like Harry, vanilla and cinnamon and leather and wealth, as he tugs it over his head. Mitch closes his eyes for a second and just breathes.

As he rejoins Harry on the terrace, he sees that Harry’s got his nose tucked down in the collar of the cardigan. Mitch is pretty sure it doesn’t smell like anything but cigarette smoke. It still does his head in, makes his stomach turn over with a slow anticipatory roll.

Harry wraps a finger in one of the hoodie’s strings as he kisses Mitch. It shouldn’t feel like a surprise, but it still does; it’s all so unreal that it’s hard to remember the full effect of the intensity, the possessiveness, from one day to the next. Mitch settles his hands on Harry’s shoulders, feeling the old familiar softness of the sweater – my sweater, he reminds himself – and the newly familiar lines of Harry’s back.

Vaguely, through a dizzying haze of Harry, Mitch thinks that he’s not even a hoodie kind of guy. His hair doesn’t fall right with a hood in the way; it pushes up against the back of his neck and he has to rearrange it every time he turns his head. And this particular hoodie, with the ostentatious Gucci logo on the front, isn’t one he’d ever wear, even if he had the kind of money a hoodie like this must cost. It makes him feel like a rapper. A lousy one.

He’d rather have his cardigan. But it seems absurd to say, “Gimme my sweater back, rockstar.” He’s here, in paradise, a reversal of fortune so quick that he’s still disoriented from it, making more money playing music than he’d ever thought he would, and all of it’s thanks to Harry. Compared to that, a sweater is such an inconsequential thing. Mitch puts it out of his mind, loses himself in the feel and taste of Harry instead, as the thread of orange on the horizon fades and the breeze carries in the scent of brine and tropical flowers.

Gods demand sacrifice, and Mitch isn’t about to to back away from the altar.


	8. lilo/tomlinshaw kidfic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fluffy lilo kidfic with tomlinshaw pining, canon-compliant [hoodie](http://lpfashionarchive.tumblr.com/post/160560821447/liam-on-snapchat-may-11-2017-stella-mccartney) [sharing](http://ltfashionarchive.tumblr.com/post/160873765124/louis-in-doncaster-may-20-2017-stella-mccartney), and just a spot of lourry angst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for [Mildly_Maddy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mildly_Maddy). it's the only kidfic i'll ever write, so i went for broke.

Almost two months, and Louis still hasn’t met the baby. He hasn’t meant to put it off. It’s just that there are so many other things to do, and he and Liam are barely on the same continent these days anyway.

Today’s the day he decided that’s unacceptable. So he’s driving to Surrey, even after a full day shooting in Doncaster, even though he knows it’s a bad night for it. Liam’s probably knackered after getting back from the states on an overnight flight. And part of Louis knows that even without the jetlag, Liam would rather have a quiet evening with his little family.

But their friendship has always been based on Louis pushing boundaries and Liam ending up glad that he did, so Louis hadn’t bothered to ask how Liam felt about him showing up. He’d just announced he was coming, and he doesn’t feel one bit bad about it.

Nor does he feel bad about showing up the night before Liam goes on the Breakfast Show. You can stay up all night and still do the Breakfast Show just fine. God knows Nick and Harry have proved that.

Louis never got the chance to. Nick was the place Harry went that wasn’t Louis, the next chapter after the inexplicable fuel source that kept the too-bright too-hot flame of their friendship burning finally ran out. Being friendly with Nick would have felt like chasing after Harry with a knife and flint, trying to coax a spark onto something dead.

It’s after dark by the time he pulls up to Liam’s house. Cheryl answers the door, in yoga pants and a ponytail. “You look lovely,” Louis tells her, and means it.

“Thank you, love, it almost sounds like the truth when you say it,” she says, pulling him into a hug. “Come on inside, the baby’s sleeping on top of Liam.”

Cheryl turns to lead him into the living room. From behind, Louis can see a ghostly spot of baby sick on the back of her shirt. “He a good sleeper, then?”

“Both of them, yeah.” Cheryl smiles back at him.

Liam’s stretched out on the couch with Bear on his chest, tucked up in a ball with Liam’s arm holding him in place. There’s a load of unfolded laundry on the other couch, all baby blankets and onesies and tiny flannels.

Louis pushes aside several rattles and squeaky toys and sits on the coffee table next to them. “Hey,” he says, reaching one finger out to smooth over the fuzz on the back of the baby’s head. “Welcome aboard, little man.”

Liam beams, eyes tired but as happy as Louis has ever seen him. “He’s great, right?”

“Of course he is.” Louis touches the bottom of one tiny foot. “Congratulations.”

“You want him?” Liam gestures with his free hand, offering the baby to Louis.

“You sure? Never wake a sleeping baby.”

“He’s due to eat soon anyway,” Liam says. “Here, take him.”

Louis stands and scoops up Bear, who barely stirs when Louis situates him against his shoulder. He falls into the rhythm of holding a baby without even thinking about it, shifting his weight from side to side.

Bear’s practically weightless in his arms. He realizes, suddenly, how big Freddie’s gotten. Louis tips his head down to inhale the warm scent of baby shampoo and sour milk, and looks up to see that Liam’s got his phone out taking their picture.

Bear sleeps long enough for Louis to ask Liam all of the standard baby questions, how he’s sleeping and how he’s eating and what happened the night he was born. Then he wakes up and is willing to let Louis jolly him along for a few more minutes while he and Liam have a choppy half-conversation about video shoots and promo schedules.

“Breakfast Show tomorrow, then?” Louis finally asks. Bear squirms in his arms.

It’s not a question about Nick, not really. Louis makes it a policy not to ask about Nick, or even to notice him.

Liam nods. “Yeah, it’ll be good to see Grim.”

Louis hums noncommittally. Bear squawks and pushes away from his shoulder.

Louis mostly manages not to notice Nick’s long legs and big hands. It’s harder not to notice how Nick always seems so delighted with everything, tells every story like it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to him.

“I’ll tell him you said hi,” Liam says.

“…sure,” Louis says, after a moment, as Bear’s disgruntlement crescendos.

Sometimes Louis wonders if he could manage to annoy Nick enough to get underneath that exterior of gentle banter and amused self-deprecation, or if Nick would be just as delighted by Louis as he is about everything else. He doesn’t think too hard about which outcome he’d prefer.

Bear arrives at full-on tears, and Louis recognizes that professional intervention is called for. “Cheryl!” he yells, just as she swoops into the room.

She retrieves the baby from him, automatically falling into the same baby-bouncing sway Louis had. It’s much more effective when Cheryl does it. “Bedtime,” she says, smiling at Liam as she heads toward the stairs.

Liam watches her go. It’s obvious he’d like to follow. “Want to see the nursery?” he asks Louis, hopefully.

“Sure,” Louis says, although he doesn’t particularly care about the nursery. But he’s got a half-idea in his head, and being upstairs could help.

Cheryl’s in the middle of undressing the baby when they get to the nursery. Liam joins her at the changing table, chattering sweetly to Bear and letting him grab his fingers while Cheryl efficiently deals with his nappy.

“Pass me the cream?” she asks. Liam hands her a tube of something from his side of the baby. One finger’s still in Bear’s clutches, and Liam doesn’t miss a beat in the one-sided conversation he’s conducting.

Louis knows the contours of this routine, although it’s strange to see it done as a team. Feeding and songs in the half-light of the nursery come next. He’d only be intruding if he stuck around.

This visit’s just about run its course, anyway. Nobody wants company for hours with a new baby, Louis remembers. You want company just long enough to adore the baby properly and to reassure you that people remember who you are outside your small cheerful prison of nappies and play mats and laundry.

“I’m off,” he announces, coming up behind Liam to hug him with one cheek pressed against his shoulder. “Thanks for letting me stop by. You’ve bred well.”

“Thanks for coming,” Liam says, turning around to hug him back. “You’re the first to meet him, of the boys, I mean.”

That feels wrong, but also right. “New favorite nephew,” Louis says into Liam’s shoulder. Liam feels skinnier.

Liam laughs. “I wish I could tell you you’re his favorite uncle, but I think Andy’s already got that one.”

“Think I’ll live,” Louis says as he turns to leave. “Good luck tomorrow,” he adds offhandedly, pulling the nursery door closed behind him.

He passes the half-opened double doors to the master bedroom on his way to the stairs. There’s a bassinet by the side of the unmade bed and an overlarge suitcase on the floor, clothes spilling out of it.

The half-idea in Louis’s head suddenly takes perfect form.

He slips through the opening in the door and paws over the contents of the suitcase until something catches his eye. A black hoodie with patches on it and blocky letters on the sleeve. One shoulder is that peachy-pink color that Liam’s been wearing lately. Louis likes it; it makes Liam look soft. Not like Harry’s aggressive pink.

He tugs the hoodie over his head and goes to preen in the mirror on the far side of the room. Perfect.

On his way back out the door, he skirts the edge of a baby blanket spread out on the carpet. Something gives under his foot, and Louis recognizes the gentle squeak of Sophie the Giraffe. He looks down to confirm. Sophie’s tangled up with… a pair of little crocheted nunchucks? Louis considers nicking them too; Freddie would love nunchucks.

He rejects the idea. Appropriating one of Liam’s innumerable hoodies seems like the kind of mildly monstrous behavior that will delight Liam (and, maybe, Nick). Stealing the coolest baby toy ever might be unforgivable.

The door to the nursery’s still closed when Louis trots downstairs and out the front door, hands tucked in the cuffs of the ill-begotten hoodie, smirking all the way back to Doncaster.

By the time he gets home, Liam’s due to wake up in an hour or two. Louis finds a well-lit corner and takes a selfie, eyes bugged out and lips stretched in flat-line smile, pointing at the pink patch on the shoulder of the hoodie. He sends it to Liam.

It’s the kind of story Liam might tell Nick, when Nick asks him about the others. If Nick asks him about the others.

Nick’s always making guests call people.

Louis keeps his phone on, just in case.


	9. louis tomlinson's party sloth rental empire (kinda lourry, kinda fionrry)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the unexpected sequel/prequel to party slothry

Harry had big plans for the hiatus, until he became a sloth.

Hell, Harry’s big plans are the reason there’s a hiatus in the first place. He lays it all out in a conference room, Jeff Azoff standing at his shoulder, and the rest of them know that all they can do is get on board. Harry wants the million-dollar narrative of their performative friendship floating his solo boat into friendly waters, and if the rest of them try to fight it, they’re only hurting themselves.

So they nod, and bump fists with Harry. Then they exchange quiet glances with each other, and get on with making their own plans.

Or Niall and Liam do, at least. Louis isn’t quite sure what to do with himself. Something on the business side of things, he supposes. The fans only seem to care about him because they think he’s fucking Harry. That’s no basis for a solo career.

So Louis is the one at loose ends when Harry wakes up a sloth the morning after their final performance. The only one who’s curious enough to visit. Harry wraps all four of his ungainly limbs around Louis and snuffles against his neck, and Louis has the strangest sense of deja vu. But surely he’s only thinking of The X Factor because they performed there last night.

He takes Harry home with him to LA. It’s not bad; Harry never was a bad roommate. And now that it’s finally clear they’re not lovers (or, at least, Louis hopes to god it’s clear), they get back to something approximating a friendship. As close to friends as you can be with a sloth, at least. Mostly they hang out on the couch, watching rom-coms and bad reality television. Louis orders Pizza Hut and Harry looks at him reproachfully over the top of the strawberry he’s nibbling.

The hiatus is kind to the others, Niall especially. With Harry out of the picture, Niall has the classic rock niche all to himself. Louis goes to see one of his shows and Stevie Nicks shows up to sing with him. Harry would have liked to do that, Louis thinks.

Liam stops by when he’s in town. Harry likes to go running with him, draped over Liam’s back. Liam nods and makes affirmative noises in response to Harry’s grunts and squeaks, sometimes for hours at a time.

“Do you understand him?” Louis finally asks.

“Nah, but I never did in the first place,” Liam says.

After a couple of months of sleep and bad television Louis finally feels well-rested and ready to leave the house. On a whim, he takes Harry out to The Nice Guy with the lads. The doorman doesn’t give him any hassle; Harry Styles still has no trouble getting into a club.

They settle into a booth, with Harry lounging on the back of it, and suddenly they’re the center of attention. Everyone in the place wants to say hi to Harry. Louis ignores them all, angling his back toward the room in favor of Oli and Stan.

Most people get the hint. But a woman in a plunging black jumpsuit air-kisses Harry on both cheeks, then bends down to talk to Louis. “Does Harry have management these days?” 

Louis doesn’t know. Jeff certainly hasn’t been in touch. “Reckon I’m the closest thing to it,” Louis says.

“Have you ever considered private appearances?” She slides a thick, cream-colored business card into his hand. “I work in event planning, and I know I have clients who would be interested.”

“Thanks,” Louis says, holding up the card between two fingers. “I’ll be in touch.”

Arranging a few parties for Harry to attend is easier than Louis expects. It’s kind of like early days in the band, shepherding Harry along, keeping him happy. There’s a part of him that says he should have known something like this would happen, that he’s always going to live in Harry’s shadow.

But he tries to ignore that little voice, because he’s surprisingly energized by masterminding Harry’s reentry to the market. He ups Harry’s rates month after month, but they still have bookings every weekend. Louis turns down all but the most high-profile and exclusive events, not wanting to wear Harry out. He wishes there was another sloth with Harry’s appeal; there’s certainly room for the business to expand.

The party scene is ideal for Harry as well. Everyone talks to him, and he doesn’t have to make conversation. Harry revels in making endless eye contact with an inexhaustible parade of party guests willing to scratch his head.

Things have been going swimmingly for several months when they end up at Taylor Swift’s party. Louis ignores Taylor’s sweetly draconian efforts to discourage cell phones and posts a video of Harry and Taylor’s cat Olivia sniffing at each other. Olivia rubs her head against Harry’s chin, and Harry licks at her with his little pink sloth tongue. It gets more likes than anything else Louis has ever put on Instagram, which he tries not to feel discouraged about.

Later in the week, he realizes why. Harry’s at his most marketable as part of a fling or a flirtation. Louis can cash in on this, somehow.

When Harry’s cast in a film alongside several other promising young sloths, Louis haunts the set. Harry and Tom Glynn-Slothry make a good-looking pair, but the chemistry with Fionn Slothhead is unmistakeable. And then there’s Jack Slothden, a bit of a dark horse but Louis has a soft spot for him. Might as well put that One Direction money to good use, Louis thinks, and buys the management rights to all three of them.

It’s slow going at first, while the film’s in post-production. Nobody’s much interested in booking the other three. But Harry’s delight in his companions eases the pain while Louis waits for his investment to pay off. The sloths lounge on Louis’s lawn, Harry with his impossibly long arms draped over Tom and Jack.

Louis’s instincts pay off when the film premieres. At first, Louis increases Harry’s rates and sends him out as part of a pair. He doesn’t quite understand why Harry and Fionn are the most popular combination. Fionn lacks Harry’s natural talent with crowds; at parties he mostly hangs from a branch with his eyes closed, rebuffing Harry’s increasingly clownish attempts to get his attention.

Soon more and more clients inquire about individual bookings for the other sloths. Louis finds that he can charge just as much for a two-sloth appearance by Tom and Jack as he can for an appearance by Harry. He adds a particularly pricey new tier of service for those who want to book all four sloths.

The film’s performance at the box office exceeds everyone’s expectations. Christopher Nolan announces plans for a sloth-themed trilogy. Louis entertains film and theater offers for all of the sloths. Having cornered the market, he drives a hard bargain. One day Jeff Azoff shows up on Louis’s doorstep, looking for Harry. Louis politely slams the door in his face.

The sloths are out back, dangling from the jungle gym Louis installed for them. Freddie’s trying to climb up to join them. Louis detaches Freddie’s fingers from the bars and bends to scoop him up. Harry drops onto Louis’s back and hooks his chin over Louis’s shoulder.

“All right, Harry?” Louis asks, turning his head so they’re face to face. Harry closes his eyes and smiles serenely.

He doesn’t really lose, Harry. Even as a sloth.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm always in port [here](http://ferryboatpeak.tumblr.com/), come say hi


End file.
